Businesses are continuously looking for new ways to attract potential customers to their products and services. However, in order to create the attraction, businesses must first interact with the potential customers.
From a potential customer's point of view, an interaction with a business can be a positive experience, a negative experience, or a neutral experience. When a potential customer is contacted by a business, the amount of benefit provided to the customer or, alternatively, the level of annoyance to the customer, depends on the compatibility between the business and the potential customer as well as the method of contact chosen by the business. Businesses interact with potential customers via advertisements through a variety of different media channels, including web pages, television, radio, magazines, billboards, and newspapers, among others. Bulk advertising methods are minimally intrusive, as potential customers are able to continue going about their everyday lives without diverting a significant amount of attention to the advertisements. However, businesses may also attempt to contact potential customers directly by emailing them, contacting them through text messages, or contacting them via voice calling.
Such methods of direct advertising can create a dilemma for potential customers. The potential customer can choose to limit the amount of interference created by the direct advertisement by simply ignoring the direct advertisement attempt. However, ignoring the advertisement involves both an opportunity cost (i.e., the advertisement may have presented a valuable opportunity that the potential customer is now unable to take advantage of) and an error cost (i.e., what the potential customer thought was an advertisement was actually some other event that may have provided value). The potential customer can also choose to divert substantial attention to the direct advertisement at the risk that the diversion will amount to nothing more than a substantial interference with everyday life.
Potential customers would benefit from additional information in making better choices with respect to events that may potentially be direct advertisement attempts by a business. However, the potential customer often has little or no information regarding the business responsible for the direct advertisement. Furthermore, the potential customer frequently has no information regarding the content of the information the business may provide in the prospective interaction.